TEHRAN (Press Shia) – Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Shamkhani and his Russian and Pakistani counterparts, Nikolai Patrushev and Nasser Khan Janjua, agreed to hold a joint security conference with the participation of other regional nations.

In a meeting in the Russian resort city of Sochi on Thursday, Shamkhani, Patrushev, and Janjua reached the agreement to hold a joint security conference attended by other regional states and determine its mechanism.

The three top security officials also agreed to continue joint negotiations and hold talks with other Asian countries to invite them to participate in the security conference.

During the meeting, they also expressed concerns over the US moves to destabilize the Middle East region and stressed the need for cooperation among all influential Asian countries to counter US threats.

Addressing the 9th International Meeting of High Representatives for Security Issues in Sochi on Wednesday, Shamkhani had cautioned against Washington's plots to dominate the Middle East and said the US is seeking to destabilize the region to increase its military presence there.

“As the biggest exporter of arms and ammunition, the US dominates more than a third of the world’s arms market,” he stated.

More than 70 percent of the US arms are sold to the Middle East, he said, adding that the amount of US arms exports has doubled over the past 10 years, making the region “a gunpowder storehouse”.

“Given such a lucrative market, would the US have even a willingness to end wars? Would it (the US) had been able to sell more than $100 billion of weapons to Saudi Arabia without portraying Iran as a security threat?” Shamkhani noted.

“It is natural that all responses (to the above questions) are negative because the US’s definitive policy is to manage insecurity and destabilize the region to strengthen its presence, develop its military bases, sell (more) weapons and interfere in the region's affairs,” he noted.

The remarks came as the Middle East has been plagued with conflicts and Takfiri terrorist groups like Daesh (also known as ISIS or ISIL), which are believed to have been created and supported by the US and some regional countries.

Countries like Iraq and Syria have been gripped by insurgency and terrorism, while Yemen has been suffering from a brutal aggression by a Saudi-led coalition for the past three years.